fortunately, at home
he was always the lion, a fact which those who knew him only as the
spaniel could not well believe. The marriage of two such people, needless
to say, was not happy. They mutually aggravated each other. Eliza, with
her sensitive, unforgiving nature, could not make allowances. Mr. Bishop
would not. Much as her waywardness and hastiness were at fault, he was
still more to blame in effecting the rupture between them.

The strain upon Eliza's nervous system, caused by almost daily quarrels
and scenes of violence, was more than she could bear. Then, to add to her
misery, she found herself in that condition in which women are apt to be
peculiarly susceptible and irritable. Her pregnancy so stimulated her
abnormal emotional excitement that her reason gave way, and for months
she was insane. Though she had her intervals of passivity she was at
times very violent, and disastrous results were feared. It was necessary
for some one to keep constant guard over her, and Mary was asked to
undertake this task.

Relentless as Fate in pursuing the hero of Greek Tragedy to his
predestined end, were the circumstances which formed Mary's prejudice
against the institution of marriage. This was the third domestic tragedy
caused by the husband's petty tyranny and the wife's slender resources of
defence, of which she was the immediate witness. Her experience was
unfortunate. The bright side of the married state was hidden from her.
She saw only its shadows, and these darkened until her soul rebelled
against the injustice, not of life, but of man's shaping of it. Sad as
was the fate of the Bloods and much as they needed her, the Bishop
household was still sadder and its appeals more urgent, and Mary hurried
thither at once.

No one can read the life of Mary Wollstonecraft without loving her, or
follow her first bitter struggles without feeling honor, nay reverence,
for her true womanliness which bore her bravely through them. She never
shrank from her duty nor lamented her clouded youth. Without a murmur she
left Walham Green and established herself as nurse and keeper to the poor
mad sister. There could be no greater heroism than this. With a nervous
constitution not unlike that of "poor Bess," she had to watch over the
frenzied mania of the wife and to confront the almost equally insane fury
of the husband. One of the letters which she wrote at this time to
Everina describes forcibly enough her sister's sad condition and